Here's a morning sketch I made. A bit of subconscious, a bit of just really wanting to draw a panther.

Which made it rather coincidentally amusing when Hayley Campbell said people used to call her Mowgli as a kid. Here's the Twitter conversation. (She's originally from Brisbane which, worryingly, is underwater right now.)

H: In other news, my Ma has seen a bunch of lost and confused peacocks on our street, someone else saw a bull shark in another street far away.

H: When I was a kid I used to go SWIMMING in floodwaters. No wonder I had to be so frequently de-wormed.

And remember the cut-out Vern and Lettuce tractor? Well, there's more cut-and-paste fun to be had over on Mo-Bot HighNeill Cameron's blog! Go on, make a Mo-Bot! I'm hoping to make one and draw my own paintwork, 'cause Mo-Bots are all about customising.

Other good news, Tom Spurgeon on the Comics Reporter writes that Drawn and Quarterly are going to publish a collection of Canadian Kate Beaton's work, coming out in hardcover this autumn! And Jonathan Cape are going to publish it in the UK, so a lot of people will be looking forward to that. If you haven't seen Kate's comics, they're brilliant. She makes funny stories about historical events, literary figures, the time she spent working in the office at an oil refinery in the middle of nowhere in Canada, and doing parodies of book covers, such as a series I read in entirety as a teenager called Nancy Drew. I hope she'll come to the UK as part of her book tour! She came to the UK Web & Mini Comix Thing a couple years ago, but she was mobbed by fans, so I only got to chat with her briefly.

Australian childhoods sound awesome. My Mum grew up in NSW and my Grandmother's stories usually ended with 'and then I found her, completely naked, playing under the house surrounded by snakes.' Of course, this was at the time when nice girls wore gloves and hats and petticoats, even in the bush.

Watching the coverage of the floods is chilling - and I often forget it's not just rainwater; it's sewage and rubbish etc. *shudder*